The Frida Kahlo Exhibition at the Tate Modern: A brief biography and review of her works

In a few days the
Frida Kahlo Exhibition at the Tate Modern comes to an end. If you are in London
you have a last chance to go and see it. Here Harry Whittaker looks at the life
and works of this artist.

The outstanding success of the exhibition is a testimony to
Kahlo’s international eminence in the art world and her powerful image as a
cult figure and feminist icon. More than fifty years after her death she is
admired not only for her work, but also for her rebellious bohemian
nonconformity, her passionate socialism, and her iron-willed determination to
overcome her many misfortunes and live life to the full.

But to admire her work is one thing, to fully appreciate it
is another. To do so it is necessary to know something of her story and her
cultural background.

Frida was born on July 6, 1907, the third daughter of
Matilde Calderon, a Mexican woman, and Wilhelm Kahlo, a German Jew of Hungarian
parentage who arrived in Mexico when he was 19 years old. From an early age she
was acutely aware of the frailty of the human frame, often witnessing her
father’s epileptic fits while she was still in her infancy. When she was six
years old she was stricken by polio, which left her right leg and foot thin and
deformed. Other children called her “Peg-leg Frida”, which must have hurt her
deeply, but her father did his best to help her through the ordeal; he massaged
her leg, encouraged her with her therapy, and displayed his great love for his
favourite daughter. She was always much closer to him than to her deeply
religious mother.

In 1922 she was one of only 35 girls in an intake of 2,000
pupils accepted into the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, the best school in
Mexico. There she would study languages and natural sciences, hoping eventually
to become a doctor.

This was at a time when Mexico was experiencing a rebirth of
national pride, rejecting the old European colonial influences and reviving its
native culture.

The Preparatoria was at the very heart of this revival and
it was here that Frida’s pride in her Mexican heritage was intensified;
hereafter she would give her year of birth as 1910, the year which saw the
start of the Mexican revolution. In the school there were several cliques; most
prominent among them was “The Cachuchas”, several of whom were later to become
left-leaning members of Mexico’s intelligentsia. Frida joined this clique and
became the girl friend of its undisputed leader, a handsome young law student
named Alejandro Gomez Arias. Throughout her student days she still had to work
to help support her family, but life was looking good, the future was full of
promise. Then, on the afternoon of September 17, 1925, all her dreams were
shattered.

It was the most terrible day in her life; she and Alejandro
were travelling in a wooden bus which was hit by an electric trolley car,
apparently not an unusual occurrence in Mexico City in those days. Her injuries
were horrendous: her collarbone was broken, her right leg had eleven fractures
and her right foot was dislocated and crushed. Her spinal column was broken in
three places, her left shoulder dislocated and two ribs broken. Her pelvis was
also broken in three places, thus denying her the children she longed for in
later life. A steel handrail had pierced the left side of her body and exited
through her vagina. To add indignity to her pain the wreckage had by some fluke
ripped the clothes from her body, leaving her completely nude. Alejandro, who
had been sitting beside her, was not seriously injured.

The doctors did not believe she would survive, but a month
later she was released from hospital to convalesce at home. From then onwards
her life was a struggle against her relentlessly deteriorating physical
condition. She would undergo dozens of operations, suffer almost constant pain,
and be continually reminded of her own mortality. It was at this time that she
began to paint. Her parents had a canopy placed over her bed with a mirror on
the underside so that she could paint herself. She sent her first self-portrait
as a gift to her beloved Alejandro, along with many letters imploring him to
visit her. But although they remained good friends Alejandro was no longer
interested in a romantic relationship with the battered, broken
eighteen-year-old who so recently had been the object of his affection.

So Frida continued to paint, gradually adapting her style
until it became more identifiably Mexican. She struck up a friendship with the
beautiful American photographer Tina Modoti, and it was through her that she
joined the Communist party. She also became acquainted with the great Mexican
muralist Diego Rivera. She had seen Diego at work in the Preparatoria when she
was a student there. She and Diego fell in love and in 1928 he included her in
his painting “The Ballad of the Revolution”. He depicted her distributing guns
to revolutionary fighters. The following year they were married. Her mother was
strongly opposed to the marriage because Diego was ugly, he was twenty years
her senior, and he was a communist. She did not attend the wedding.

Diego was an incurable philanderer, but although women found
him irresistible he was no handsome prince; once when they were trading insults
Frida told him he had a face like a frog, and she was not exaggerating – any
frog within earshot would have demanded an apology! But there was a plus side
to the flamboyant artist; he was generous to Frida and her family, and he was
sincere in his socialist beliefs. In 1929 he was expelled from the Communist
party because of his opposition to Stalin, so Frida resigned out of loyalty to
her husband. She continued to paint, and her painting continued to improve, but
for years she felt that she was living under the shadow of her husband.

In 1930, after her first pregnancy was terminated, she
accompanied Diego to San Francisco where he had a commission. Diego’s next
commission was in Detroit, where Frida’s second pregnancy ended with a
miscarriage in 1932. Her mother died the same year, and although she had always
claimed there was no real bond between her and her mother, she wept
uncontrollably at the news. Diego’s last major commission before returning to
Mexico was a mural for the Rockefeller centre in New York. This led to his
famous altercation with Rockefeller, who ordered him to remove Lenin’s face
from the mural. To his credit Diego refused, so Rockefeller paid him off, had
him evicted from the centre, and later destroyed the mural. They returned to
Mexico at the end of 1933.

Although she did not like America’s puritanical bourgeois
society she did make many good friends there, including Dr. Leo Eloesser, who
became her lifelong medical adviser. She also conceded that when the Americans
fight you “…even the Rockefellers don’t stab you in the back.” Her visit to
America also inspired two of her best-known paintings, ‘My Dress Hangs Here’
and ‘Self-Portrait on the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States’. It
was also during their stay in New York that Diego angered Frida’s American
friends by neglecting her in order to have an affair with a young divorcee. “I
have this deplorable trend of hurting those I love,” he explained. The
following year he was to hurt her even more.

1934 was a terrible year in Frida’s life: her third
pregnancy was terminated, her right foot was operated on and several toes
amputated, and to add to her anguish Diego had an affair with her sister
Cristina. This was too much. In 1935 she moved into a small apartment in Mexico
City. She could not stop loving Diego, but from now she was going to give as
good as she got; that year she met and had an affair with the American sculptor
Isamu Noguchi. Diego threatened to shoot him. All Frida’s pain and anger can be
seen in the painting she did that year: ‘A few small nips’.

They were reunited and parted several times after that, but
Frida was now moving out of Diego’s shadow. In 1936 she had another operation
on her right foot. She was back in the couple’s joint home that year and was
very active in her support of the Spanish Republicans. At this time the plight
of the great hero of the Russian revolution, Leon Trotsky, became desperate.
Expelled from Norway under pressure from Russia, he and his wife had been
refused asylum by country after country. Diego Rivera presented president
Cárdenas with a petition for Trotsky’s asylum, and Cárdenas consented; thus on
the morning of January 9, 1937, Trotsky and his wife set foot on Mexican soil.

Frida gave them the use of the Blue House in Coyoacán, the
house in which she had been born.

It has been suggested that Frida’s affair with Trotsky was
an attempt by her to get revenge on Diego for his affair with her sister. Utter
nonsense! When Frida Kahlo looked at Leon Trotsky she knew she was looking at
no ordinary man. This was the intellectual giant driven by an unshakeable
resolve to change the world, this was the living legend hero-worshipped by
revolutionaries the world over; it is hardly surprising that these two
outstanding personalities were drawn to each other.

Their liaisons took place in Cristina’s house, but it was
doomed to be a brief affair. Trotsky’s bodyguards were worried that the
volatile Diego would get wind of it and impulsively end the career of his
political idol with a bullet, and furthermore, Natalia Trotsky was no fool; she
knew what was going on and she did not deserve to be hurt this way. So after a
few weeks the affair was ended. Trotsky moved to a farm eighty miles outside of
Mexico City. The affair was not just another conquest for Frida; she gave him a
gift of a self-portrait inscribed: “For Leon Trotsky with all love I dedicate
this painting.” She also wrote to a friend in 1938 that meeting Trotsky was the
best thing that ever happened in her life.

In the following years she greatly increased her painting
output, and concentrated on improving her technique; she was determined to be
financially independent although she pretended to be modest, implying that
anyone who would buy her paintings had more money than sense. But people did
start buying her pictures. It began when Diego showed some of her work to the
film actor and serious art collector Edward G. Robinson. He bought four of them
at $200 each. She was delighted at this breakthrough: “This way I’ll be free,
I’ll be able to travel and do what I want without asking Diego for money.” Her
confidence boosted by this unexpected sale, she held her first solo exhibition
in the Julian Levy gallery in New York.

Although the exhibition gained much favourable publicity
from the fact that she was Diego’s wife it established her reputation as an
artist in her own right. More than half the paintings were sold and she
received great acclaim from the press and the art world. She had now truly
emerged from Diego Rivera’s shadow. And just to emphasize the point she had an
affair with the photographer Nicholas Murray.

From there she took her work to Paris where the French
surrealist André Breton had helped arrange an exhibition of her works. Before
the exhibition could open she wound up in hospital with inflammation of the
kidneys and bladder. When she recovered she arranged, with Diego’s help, for
four hundred refugees from the Spanish Civil War to gain asylum in Mexico. When
the show opened in March 1939, it was a critical but not a financial success.
Afterwards she returned to New York for a short stay then moved back to her
family home in Coyoacán. That year she and Diego were divorced.

There are several rumours about the reason for the divorce
(which was instigated by Diego). Both claimed it was the only way to preserve
their friendship, and it is also thought that Diego was trying to protect her
from possible reprisals by his political enemies. In any case the split was
amicable and they continued to see each other and work together, although Frida
confided in a letter to her ex-lover Nick Murray that she was feeling rejected
and depressed. In truth, she was heartbroken.

During that period she worked harder than ever, not only
because she needed to make a living, but also because she needed to smother the
pain that Diego had caused her. Her friends rallied round her at this time,
sending her money and helping with her medical bills.

In May, 1940, an unsuccessful attempt was made on Trotsky’s
life by a group of Stalinists. Diego Rivera was wrongly implicated and had to
leave Mexico for his own safety. He went to San Francisco where he had been
promised some work. But on August 20, a Stalinist agent named Ramón Mercader
murdered Trotsky by smashing into his skull with an ice pick. Because she had
known Mercader, Frida was also wrongly suspected of complicity. Although her
health was very poor at this time, she and Cristina were arrested and
imprisoned for two days. Worried about Frida’s worsening health, Diego informed
her medical adviser Dr Eolesser about her situation. The doctor immediately
contacted her and implored her to come to San Francisco. She did so and under
his supervision her health greatly improved. During this time Diego realized
how badly the divorce had affected Frida’s health; he also realized that he
needed her as much as she needed him. They remarried on December 5. Frida
stipulated that there would be no more sexual intercourse between them and that
she would accept no money from him, living only on the money from her paintings.
Diego was happy to have her back whatever the conditions. She returned to
Mexico to spend Christmas with her family and Diego followed her in February
after being cleared of any implication in Trotsky’s assassination. They settled
quickly into a much more contented relationship, but Frida’s new found
happiness was marred by the death of her beloved father that year.

In the 1940s Frida’s artistic reputation continued to grow.
She became a member of the Seminario de Cultura Mexicano in 1942, and the following
year was awarded a professorship at the La Esmeralda School of Art. She taught
twelve lessons a week there.

After a few months, crippled by pain and forced to wear a
steel corset, she became housebound; undeterred, she conducted her lessons from
her home. In the years that followed her health deteriorated at an increasing
pace, but she still remained politically active (she rejoined the Communist
Party in 1948) and still continued to paint when she could, although the
quality of her work would decline along with her health. In 1946 the Ministry
of Public Education awarded her a national prize for her picture ‘Moses,’ and
that same year she had to go to New York for a spinal operation.

In 1950 she underwent seven operations on her spine and had
to spend nine months in hospital. After being discharged from hospital she
spent most of her time in a wheelchair and was constantly dependent on
painkillers.

In 1953, sensing that Frida had not long to live, her friend
Lola Alvarez Bravo planned the first solo exhibition of Frida’s work in Mexico.
Frida was delighted and was determined to ignore her doctor’s advice and attend
the exhibition personally. On the opening night her four-poster bed was wheeled
into the hall. Shortly afterwards Frida arrived by ambulance and was laid on
the bed wearing one of her traditional Mexican dresses. Her friends gathered
round her and they drank and sang songs well into the night. Despite her pain
and great physical discomfort it must surely have been one of the happiest nights
of her life. The show was such a success that it had to be extended for a
month.

But yet another setback was in store for her that year; she
was told that she would have to lose her right leg. There was no choice, she
was in terrible pain, her body was ravaged by drugs and the gangrene was
advancing. She became deeply depressed after the operation, but her spirits
lifted when, after a few months, she learned to walk short distances with the
aid of an artificial leg.

Still full of fight, Frida defied doctor’s orders in July,
1954, to take part in a demonstration. She joined thousands of Mexicans in the
streets, Diego pushing her wheelchair, to protest against the CIA’s
interference in Guatemala. A photograph of her at the protest shows her looking
ill and tired, but still defiant.

On the July 12, she gave Diego a ring as a twenty-fifth
anniversary present. When Diego asked why she was giving him it when the
anniversary date was still about a month away, she said “Because I feel I’m
going to leave you soon.”

The next day, in the very same house where it began, her
life came to an end.

The Paintings

Let us now view some of her work at the exhibition and see
what it can tell us.

Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress, 1926

This was the painting she gave as
a gift to Alejandro Gomez Arias in an unsuccessful attempt to regain his
affections while she was recovering from the horrendous injuries she sustained
in the streetcar accident. A strong European influence is obvious in her style,
reminiscent of the old Italian masters. It is a style she was soon to change.

My Grandparents, My Parents and I, 1936

She was intensely conscious of
her roots, of where she was coming from and who she was. She portrays herself
as a very young child standing in the garden of her family home. She is holding
a red ribbon, one end of which reaches up to her maternal grandparents hovering
above the Mexican landscape, the other reaching to her paternal grandparents
hovering above the sea. She also paints herself as a foetus in her mother’s
womb, and below that, the moment of her conception. This fascination with her
origins would appear in many of her works.

La Adelita,
Pancho Villa, and Frida, 1927

Political from an early age, here
she identifies herself with The Mexican Revolution by painting herself with its
heroes.

My Birth, 1932

Her lifelong fascination with birth, life and death.
While she was working on this picture her own mother died. The child being born
is herself and the covered head and upper torso is almost certainly a reference
to her mother’s death.

A Few Small Nips, 1935

This work was inspired by a real
murder case in which the killer tried to defend his actions by claiming, “…it
was only a few small pricks.” We see the jealous man showing no sign of remorse
as he looks down on the bloody corpse of the woman he has just butchered. It
refers not only to the violent abuse of women but also to the pain beyond
measure that Frida felt on discovering that her husband and her favourite
sister were having an affair.

Henry Ford Hospital, 1932

This was one of the paintings
that gained her recognition among the surrealists but strictly speaking her
work was not surrealist and she did not wish to be associated with the
movement. Many of her paintings were symbolic and could be easily decoded. All
the objects surrounding her in this painting are related to her miscarriage at
the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. She was still desperately longing for a
child of her own.

My Nurse and I, 1937

When she was born Frida was wet
nursed by a native woman. There is no sign of affection on the woman’s mask
like face but Frida is absorbing the culture of her native land and her Mexican
ancestors.

Self-Portrait
On The Borderline Between Mexico and The United States, 1932

Here we see Frida standing between
her ancient Mexican homeland and the brash, heavily industrialized United
States. The Mexican flag she holds indicates where her loyalties lie. Unlike
Diego, who loved being in America, she was never happy to be away from her
native land.

My Dress Hangs Here, 1933

Here she is showing her strong
dislike of American capitalism with its destructive, wasteful vulgarity and its
lack of basic human values.

The Two Fridas, 1939

Possibly her best-known work, she painted this while
she was divorced from Diego Rivera. The Frida on the right is the one Diego
loves; she is wearing a Tehuana costume and holding a small picture of Diego as
a child (she often referred to him as a child). An artery from her exposed
heart is connected to the heart of the other Frida, the one he does not love.
This Frida wears a European dress and she is trying unsuccessfully to stop the
artery from her heart bleeding on to her dress; she is slowly dying because
Diego does not love her.

Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, 1940

“See if I loved you, it was only
for your hair. Now that you’re bald I don’t love you any more.” These are the
words, written in Spanish at the top of the painting, of a song that was
popular in Mexico at the time. Believing that she was loved only for her feminine
allure, Frida crops her hair to make herself less sexually attractive. She also
wears a man’s suit, probably to reflect her bisexuality. More than half of her
paintings were self-portraits. This was not vanity; she often exaggerated her
joined eyebrows and the facial hair on her upper lip; she even entitled one of
her self-portraits ‘Very Ugly.’

The Broken Column, 1944

A lonely desolate figure stands
in a lonely desolate landscape. The broken column is her shattered spine and
her body is held together by the steel corset she was forced to wear. The pins
obviously represent her mental and physical pain and the tear stained face says
it all. There have been many fanciful interpretations put on this painting, but
the picture speaks for itself: “I still want to live, my friends, but how much
more can I take?” Never in the history of art has there been a more powerful
portrayal of human loneliness and despair.

Conclusion

Frida Kahlo’s work is gaining a
huge number of admirers all over the world. It is significant that once she was
famous for being Diego Rivera’s wife, but now her fame has eclipsed even that
of the great Mexican muralist who gave her so much joy and caused her so much
pain. Her too brief life was an incessant struggle against physical and emotional
torture and she fought hard against increasingly insurmountable odds until the
fight became just too much for her. To know her, and to empathize with her,
makes it so much easier to appreciate the unique greatness of her art. Standing
in a gallery looking at her work the viewer feels as if he can see right into
her heart and soul.